Run
by MezzoPenDoll05
Summary: Annabeth takes a 10 mile run the morning she and Percy move to New Rome.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: The Morning**

It was hard to say when exactly Annabeth Chase had started running. In a way, she'd been running her whole life. Running was a staple demigod skill. Monster killing, running, and capture the flag. Annabeth was good at a lot of other things, too, she reflected as he feet pounded the pavement, one after another. She'd spent a lot of time reading. A lot of time practicing knife fighting. A lot of time designing buildings. But if you were going for sheer amount of time, the skill she'd spent the most time on was running. A demigod was always running from something.

To something, she corrected herself. She was running to something, today.

It meant that her waking schedule was a little odd, but she liked to start her runs at sunrise. Annabeth's mom was the goddess of wisdom, and Annabeth had learned a long time ago that she should enjoy every sunrise she got to sun crested over the horizon and transformed the sound into a glittering pool of sunlight. She slowed just momentarily to enjoy the majesty of Apollo's work. Theoretically it was her last sunrise at Camp Half-Blood. She pressed onward, moving faster now.

Her path began to slant upward; the climb up the hills on the border of the camp wasn't the path most runners would take at the beginning of a long trek, but Annabeth did not mind the extra exertion. She was prepared for it. What she was not prepared for was the rest of this day. She wasn't sure what would happen when they reached their destination, today. The horrors of the giant war were still open wounds in her psyche. She wasn't sure she was ready to head straight to a new place- a place where her mother was looked down upon and people valued duty and honor above all else.

But Percy had such hope. The dream of the two of them being together in New Rome and going to college was what got him through his time at Camp Jupiter. It was what got him through Tartarus. Sometimes, Annabeth couldn't be sure about the future. In a way, she liked running.

Running meant progress. Even if it was dangerous, you got somewhere. Monsters were destroyed, Titans and Giants were defeated. Stopping meant... well, stopping meant passing the torch. Most of Annabeth was unspeakably relieved by this possibility, but at the same time, her fatal flaw reared its ugly head. Part of her did not want to give up questing.

The path crested at the top of the hill, where Thalia's tree stood proudly with the Golden Fleece draped over the lowest-hanging branch. Below in the valley was the only home she had ever known. Even with a home like this, Annabeth had never been able to become comfortable. Her first several years at the camp were filled with questions, training and waiting. Annabeth knew the night a mysterious dark haired boy appeared and slayed the minotaur that her life had changed forever. She and Percy Jackson started running, and for the better part of the last decade, it seemed they had not been able to stop. For years, stopping meant death and destruction.

This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, she mused, as she adjusted her cadence for the downhill slope. It made those few moments in between sweeter. After 4 years of quest after quest, the titan war, Percy's 8 month Hera-paid vacation, their time in Tartarus and their time in Greece... Annabeth had to appreciate the breathing moments. As she veered onto the long path that followed the 10-mile perimeter of the camp, she remembered that Percy had been the answer to her prayers.


	2. One: He Must Be

**Chapter One: He Must Be**

She had prayed and prayed for a sign, a chance. She'd prayed to every God and Goddess and spirit she could think of, from the muses to Zeus. She sat with the decrepit oracle, trying to will her into speech. She'd cajoled, begged and pestered Chiron and even tried reasoning with Mr. D. (she had to stop, lest she be turned into a dolphin). She prayed to her mother with every step she ran: _Give me a chance. Give me a chance. Give me a chance. _Eventually the prayer devolved into _Gvmechance, gvmechance_, as her pace increased slowly, until she was sprinting around the camp, mumbling under her breath. It was how she had started running.

Annabeth was running out of options fast- almost literally. Her brothers and sisters were content to solve complex equations, study military history and play risk. Annabeth was not. They went to trainings and came back to the cabin to play. Annabeth drilled her knife throwing, ran laps around the camp, did pushups.

She was ready for a quest. She wanted to see the world. There were monsters and monuments to be seen! She couldn't live the rest of her life strategizing new ways to beat the Ares cabin at capture the flag. She wanted to tackle challenges scarier than the climbing wall, navigate water wider than the canoe lake. Annabeth was 12 and she was ready. In ancient Greece she would have been engaged by now. Not that _that_ was what she wanted, but she would be considered close to an adult! She was smarter and better trained than anyone else at camp- except maybe Luke, and _he_ got a quest! She _deserved_ a quest. She _needed_ a quest. Why else would her mother have given her a birthday gift this year?

But no, Chiron told her she had to wait. She had to wait for _someone special._ Well, she had been waiting 5 years already! Wasn't she special enough on her own? Annabeth was _not_ some princess in a tower waiting to be rescued! (Percy would tell her years later that on that first night, stricken with fear, exhaustion and grief, that was exactly what he had thought she was- a princess).

She knew she was powerful. She might not be like some of the other demigods, her heart twisted as she thought about Thalia, who could call down lightning. Or Luke, who could pick any lock in the world, or even the way the Demeter campers could control plants. But sure enough, when she left the boundaries, monsters found her almost immediately. The more powerful demigods had it the hardest out in the world- and if that was true (and at the very least they were highly correlated), Annabeth had to have some kind of special power she wasn't aware of, didn't she?

She had been having a discussion along those lines with Chiron. The centaur continued to insist that an eidetic memory and being the only 12 year old to be able to use the term "flying buttresses" correctly and without giggling were her special powers. Furthermore, he insisted, those powers did not qualify her to strike out on a random quest. Looking back on it, he had been incredibly patient with her. At the time, she was prepared rebut him with a witty retort ("Yes it does!") when they heard the thump-thunk-thunk, and a faint groan from outside the big house. She raced out to see what it was. Sure enough, there was a boy on the porch.

He couldn't have been older than she was. His right hand reached desperately toward the door,, in his left he clutched a horn covered in gore. Annabeth didn't think he looked like anything special. Grover the satyr lay prone in the grass about 10 feet behind him, moaning about enchiladas. If Grover had brought him- this must be the one Chiron had been keeping an eye on this year... that might mean...

She turned her attention back to the boy. As she scrutinized him in that moment, she found him wanting. The boy was wiry but not strong-looking. He was not especially handsome or tall. His hair was a mess and he was missing a shoe. With a groan, he managed to lift his head and look at them for just a moment. His face had tear tracks and the same expression nearly every demigod who managed to stumble over the camp border shared: just a little bit of relief mixed with a whole lot of terror. She was ready to write him off entirely when the light caught his eyes, and she suddenly felt very short of breath.

His eyes were the color of the sound in a storm, with all of the fury and intensity of the vast, rocking ocean. So familiar, but she couldn't place how or why. Looking back on it now, Annabeth knew exactly who Percy looked like. Many demigods didn't resemble their parents, but Percy did. He blinked once at her. At the time, she'd told herself that the double-skip of her heart was because of the quest- the fact that the hero had gorgeous eyes had nothing to do with it. Ragged, messy, unconscious, and potentially dimwitted, he was the most beautiful thing ever to crawl over the border. Whoever he was, he was her ticket out. The hero with whom she would quest.

"He's the one," she'd breathed. "He must be."

That, it turned out, was an incredible understatement.


	3. Two: The Green Shroud

**The Green Shroud**

Thinking of how she'd found Percy strangely made Annabeth think of the only time she had ever believed she had lost him. Only the once, had she ever believed he was dead. Once was enough.

She yanked on the loom in frustration. The sound echoed through the empty crafts cabin. It had been full, before she walked in with an armful of green silk and silver thread. There was no need to say what she was going to do. One by one, the other campers set their projects aside and filed out. By the time she'd begun to thread the heddles, she was alone.

She wished some of her brothers and sisters had stayed. Being alone only made it feel more _real_. But, she'd shoved them all away (sometimes literally), in the first few days after she made it back to camp. When Silena had tried to talk to her, when Malcolm offered to lead their cabin through activities, when countless other campers reached out in sympathy, she'd shut them down. She had put on a cold mask and simply refused. _He's not dead._ She'd insisted. But it had been two weeks.

This morning, Chiron when had called her to the big house and told her they would be burning his shroud this afternoon, she'd exploded. He'd waited out the storm of her fury and fear, until she slumped in a chair at the ping pong table, defeated and empty. Without a word, he began to show her the images of the mountain. The mortals displaced. The smoke. The crown of Typhon's head.

Annabeth was forced to bow to logic. Her mother would be proud. She'd told Annabeth many times that she believed her friendship with Percy was unwise. Annabeth knew better than to argue with her mom, but she could no more not be friends with Percy than eat her own elbow. Somehow, her mom seemed to understand that, even if Annabeth didn't.

Percy. It was hard to say exactly what Annabeth felt about Percy. He flirted with mortals, he was stubborn and prideful. Some days she worried that his brain actually was full of seaweed, he made such stupid decisions. Stupid, but brave. He was painfully, ridiculously brave, and he had saved her life.

And he was dead.

A tear traced down her cheek and she choked down a sob. He was dead.

She'd been prepared for this for years, really since the day she met him and heard the story of how he killed the minotaur. He was reckless, he'd do anything to save a friend. Anything, including sacrifice his life. Another tear raced down her cheek. She wiped it away angrily trying to avoid getting it on the cloth. What gave him the right? Who was she supposed to quest with now? They'd spent four years fighting side-by-side for better or worse and he just blows himself to bits over some Telekhines and weapons?

Her shoulders shook as she wove in a line of silver. Yes, they lived in a world where it wasn't surprising that Percy was dead at 15. She had been mentally preparing for this to happen, or at least she had told herself that she had. It didn't make it any easier, make the pain any less. The feeling that half of her heart was worse than gone. She'd never been this sad and this furious at the same time before, and as a runaway demigod, it was a familiar combination.

She focused on the fury and wove faster. The quicker she finished this horrid project the better. Chiron told her he would have one of her siblings do it, but she'd insisted. For awhile, hours maybe, she was lulled by the rhythm of the loom and the rolling agony of the hot, wordless grief in her chest. The shroud grew until it spilled over Annabeth's lap and onto the floor. She held her breath and forced herself to tie the knots that would close off the threads and complete the cloth that symbolized her best friend's passing into the underworld.

There is was.

She straightened her back and stretched. But she froze when caught sight of herself in the reflection of the window. Her eyes were rimmed with red and she looked, at 15, indescribably older, aged.

Like a woman.

_Like a widow_.

The thought hit her like a ton of bricks. Of course she wasn't. She and Percy weren't even dating. But the kiss... Annabeth did not do things that were unwise. The look on his face had been priceless. You would have thought that she'd punched him- of course, that wouldn't have surprised him. She smiled, but the smile caught on the corners of her mouth. She would never punch him again. She would never kiss him again.

Those thoughts made the anger and despair boil up anew in her stomach, and for a moment she thought she might actually throw up. That would be just perfect. She fought the feeling back for as long as she could, and it came out as a sob, instead. For a long time, all she could do was clutch at the cloth and weep. She didn't have the strength for anything else.


End file.
